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About this project

THE BIG PROBLEM

There are just not enough entrepreneurs starting companies and creating jobs. Especially women entrepreneurs. I want to change that.

Founders Less Than Three is a funny, sexy novel about a Boston-based accelerator where 5 female founders and 5 male founders and their teams fight it out to make their start-up company the next big thing. It's a book with solid entrepreneurial advice, adventures, laughs, love and all the twists and turns starting a business involves, as they race towards their demo day, when the teams show off their start-up ideas and see who gets the best deal.

I'm a writer, a blogger, an entrepreneur and I've been the CEO of a start-up company in Boston. I loved hiring people and handing out paychecks. I love the culture of "try anything, try everything ... now, try again."

I especially want more women to become entrepreneurs because I think they are well suited to the unpredictable path a new business usually takes. We need lots more women founding companies and creating lots of new jobs. Of course, I want my book to inspire female and male entrepreneurs alike and make them all say, "I can do that!"

THE OBVIOUS SOLUTION

I want people to learn the lessons of entrepreneuring via a novel, not a business book, and not a textbook. I was thrilled by how many people learned about the complexities of the start-up world via the excellent storytelling in the Facebook movie, aka the film, The Social Network.

Just like the business novel, The Goal, by Eliyahu M. Goldratt and Jeff Cox, which MBA students read to learn about running a factory, I hope my book will give readers an inside look at an accelerator program and teach them about founding start-ups, as well as show them the crazy fun that entrepreneurs have outside the accelerator walls.

With your help, I can make this book a success using many of the things I learned when working at Libboo.com as Director of Publishing this past year at TechStars in Kendall Square. The Libboo team and founder, Chris Howard, are wonderfully innovative. They are doing cutting edge work with publishing and promoting e-books. We were thrilled to help publish Guy Kawasaki's book,What the Plus, Google+ For the Rest of Us, among other great books. http://amzn.to/Oc8e1Q

PLEDGES

Your pledges will let me pay an editor, a proofreader, a book cover designer and as well as create a small budget for book promotion when the book is launched. I've figured these costs around $3,000 - $5,000 for each activity, so $15,000 should cover it. The book promotion costs are the hardest to anticipate, and likely the most important part of the budget, as any author or publisher will admit.

Please feel free to pledge even $1.00 and get a preview copy of the book in digital format as soon as it's done. There's a wide range of pledge levels and rewards.

If you pledge at the $85 level, you get something very special. One of my characters is a venture capitalist with a wild reputation. He has a Magic 8-Ball on his desk and uses it to make funding decisions, something that drives his more analytical partners crazy. One of my pledge levels gets you this great predictive device -- yes, you get 8 copies of my book AND your own Magic 8-Ball.

Some of the pledge levels let YOU write part of my book. You create a fictional start-up, write their elevator pitch and give birth to an imaginary CEO. Maybe he'll be from Clarks, Nebraska or some other unlikely place.

The pledge level above the imaginary company level is all about REAL start-ups. Let me mention your ACTUAL start-up company in my book and your real CEO.

I've always been interested in product placement in films, so I'm offering a pledge level where your product can appear in my book. My character will drink your soda.

If you're an entrepreneur and want to give my book project a boost, you can make a major pledge.

WHO'S HALLEY SUITT TUCKER?

I've been writing a long time and completed many projects. My thesis for my MFA at Columbia University was a novel, which I completed, got an agent to take on, but ultimately didn't sell it to a publisher, leaving me pretty disillusioned with conventional publishing.

In 2004, I wrote Oprah's Book Club a letter about how much I liked their reading selection, Isabelle Alende's Daughter of Fortune and ended up on the show meeting fans, the author and of course, my favorite girlfriend, Oprah! In a collection called The Oprah Affect: Critical Essays on Oprah's Book Club there's a great essay by Ana Patricia Rodriquez about the show.

I have been been published on Seth Godin's cool website "Change This." I wrote and published a case study in Harvard Business Review and a short story in Penthouse Magazine. (See links below.)

Last year I published a very short e-book just to show people how easy it is to write and sell an ebook on Amazon. It's called, Does This Start-up Make Me Look Fat?

FAQ

Thanks for any recommendations, but I have some folks in mind for these roles already, so I don't need your help finding more talent at this time. I know a lot of talented editorial and graphics people and what I really need is your financial support to pay them a good wage. Underpaying your creative talent is never a good idea.

Yes, but only with permission from those real people -- don't worry. If you pledge at the REAL start-up level above and want me to mention your CEO and team in my book, I will, but only with their permission.

Rewards

Pledge $1 or more

EARLY BIRD: The digital preview edition of Founders Less Than Three, available before the rest of the world can take a peek.

Estimated delivery:Feb 2013

You selected

Pledge $25 or more

52 backers
Limited (4948 left of 5000)

E-BOOK / P-BOOK: Includes the Early Bird digital preview and one copy of the paper book, Founders Less Than Three. (Sorry, only USA delivery.)

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $50 or more

6 backers
Limited (4994 left of 5000)

FIVE EASY PIECES: 5 copies of the e-book and the Early Bird digital preview.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $75 or more

1 backer
Limited (4999 left of 5000)

SHARE AND SHARE ALIKE: Share 7 copies of the e-book with 7 lucky friends of yours.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $85 or more

6 backers
Limited (994 left of 1000)

MAGIC 8-BALL LEVEL: My favorite! One of my characters is a VC who consults the 8-Ball regularly. You get a Magic 8-Ball too and 8 copies of my book! You get 4 e-books and 4 p-books and the Early Bird digital preview. (Sorry, only USA delivery.)

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $100 or more

5 backers
Limited (495 left of 500)

JUST TAKE MY MONEY $100: If you don't want a reward and you just want to support my project at the $100 level, you can do that here. Of course, you get the Early Bird digital preview.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $125 or more

4 backers
Limited (6 left of 10)

START IT UP: You get to invent a start-up company with a fictional name, imaginary product/service, fictional CEO and I’ll put her/him in the book. I’ll give you credit for the imaginary company in my book. Also, you get 10 copies of the e-book and the Early Bird digital preview.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $150 or more

2 backers
Limited (2498 left of 2500)

SWEET THING: This is the no-brainer option. A selection of Valentines Day ecards designed by my book cover artist + Eight copies of the e-book + 1 copy of my other e-book, Does This Start-up Make Me Look Fat? as well as the Early Bird digital preview.

Estimated delivery:Feb 2013

You selected

Pledge $500 or more

4 backers
Limited (3 left of 7)

REAL LIVE START-UP: I will mention your actual start-up company, your actual product/service, your actual CEO in the book. Only 7 lucky start-ups will make it into the book. You get 100 copies of the e-book to share with your employees, friends and family, as well as 100 copies of my other e-book, Does This Start-up Make Me Look Fat? You also get the Early Bird digital preview.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $1,000 or more

0 backers
Limited (50 left of 50)

BIG THANK-YOU LEVEL: I will personally thank you and list your name in the acknowledgements of my book. You get 10 autographed copies of the p-book, 100 copies of the e-book to share with your employees, friends and family, as well as 1 copy of my other e-book, Does This Start-up Make Me Look Fat? You also get the Early Bird digital preview. Wait, want an 8-ball too? No problem, I'll toss it in as well.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $5,000 or more

0 backers
Limited (5 left of 5)

PRODUCT PLACEMENT SPONSORS: The movie E.T. had Reese’s Pieces, Bond had Omega watches, Pom Wonderful had Pom Wonderful. Place your product in the hands of my cool fictional entrepreneurs. My characters drink soda – if you are Coke or Pepsi or Dr. Pepper, I’ll ask my characters to drink YOUR soda for this pledge. If you’re an airline, my characters will fly YOUR airline. If you’re a fashion brand, especially shoes, my characters will wear your stuff. (All brands subject to my approval.) Also you get 100 copies of the E-book and of course, the Early Bird digital preview.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

You selected

Pledge $10,000

1 backer
Limited (4 left of 5)

ALPHA MALE/ FEMALE ENTREPRENERDS: You are an entrepreneur with so much money, so much klout, and so much cool, you want to just to knock this thing out of the park and fund it fast. ( I will dedicate my book to you. If you want to be anonymous, I’ll dedicate it to ANON, or a fictional name you choose.) You get as many copies of the e-book as you want and 25 autographed copies of the p-book to give away.

Estimated delivery:Mar 2013

Funding period

Aug 22, 2012 - Sep 24, 2012
(33 days)

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